L'Oréal Paris has found an unlikely partner in the pursuit of beauty—the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The pair have teamed up to host L'Oréal Paris' Intelligent Color Experience vending machines inside a New York City subway station that allows any straphanger to stock up on beauty items on-the-go.

Running in the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station between Nov. 4th and Dec. 30th, the intelligent vending machines actually scan a user's outfit to detect colors and style, in turn suggesting beauty products that "match or clash." Users can purchase items with a credit card, or if they choose not to buy on the spot, can email the look to themselves.

As more brands explore interactive shopping experiences through experiential marketing, L’Oréal’s latest offers a “real-life experience through technology,” Marc Speichert, CMO L’Oréal Americas, told the New York Times. “What’s amazing with the technology is that we’ll have the ability to measure the level of engagement," he said, based on “the number of people who pass by, the number who interact with each screen, the number who leave their information.”Continue reading...

Checking out with the scan of a finger? Having farm fresh produce delivered to your doorstep? These are no longer futuristic ideas but real tech being applied to life's most mundane task: grocery shopping.

The latest in-aisle innovations include digital price signs, real-time promotions based on the time of day, smart shopping carts and bar code scanners on mobile devices, many of which are already being utilized by some of the world's biggest retailers like Walmart, Target and Tesco.

"You have an industry that's been kind of stuck in time," Scott Mushkin, an analyst at Wolfe Research, told the Los Angeles Times. "Grocers have to invest. Their business models have been under so much pressure, they're fighting for their lives."

And investing they are. The $518 billion grocery industry has essentially been the last retail sector to take advantage of technological innovations that have come along with the surge of mobile usage. With smarter and more informed customers, grocers are constantly being pushed to be a step ahead, offering more intuitive service and better values.Continue reading...

Another retailer is experimenting with the 'shoppable wall,' this time in Russia. Electronics retailer Media Markt has rolled out a mobile shopping display inside Vystavochnaya station in Moscow. The move follows similar actions by major US retailers, including eBay, Kate Spade, Peapod and more.

The 18-panel display makes use of NFC and QR codes, enabling customers to shop the boards without the need for a special app. Consumers can scan an item on the look-a-like shelves, after which they are redirected to Media Markt's mobile site where they can select to have the product delivered for free to their home, or to pick it up in a nearby store. The installation does not include a mobile payment option—consumers can pay with cash or credit through the store or courier.

"We decided not to develop mobile payment for the pilot. However, if the pilot proves to be successful, we plan to extend the payment possibilities: credit cards, PayPal, even Underground deposit cards," Bernd Guralczyk, CEO of Media Markt in Russia, told NFC World.Continue reading...

The online farmers market is a community supported agriculture company that is quietly disrupting food commerce, though on a smaller, but more unique scale than related operations like Amazon Fresh and Fresh Direct. Instead of just allowing customers to order fresh produce through the online system, Farmigo extends a business opportunity to local farmers, allowing them to sell their harvests to an eager online community, set their own price, and earn a supplementary income.

“We’re trying to find people who have always been passionate about building a better food system, but they could blog about it and they could cheer about it, but there was nothing material that they could do to take action,” Ronen toldForbes. “Now they are able to be part of the solution. They’re able to do something actionable and make money along the way.”Continue reading...

Online grocer Peapod is featuring mobile billboards on the sides of its delivery trucks where consumers can shop on the spot using their smartphones by scanning a QR code to download a free PeapodMobile app.

Traveling to popular summer venues such as ballparks and concerts, the mobile billboards offer 23 products: six from Coca-Cola, six from Campbell Soup, six from Reckitt Benckiser and five private-label items.Continue reading...

Amazon’s home grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh, is expanding slowly—on purpose. Ther service's first roll-out beyond its home base in Seattle hit Los Angeles last week as Amazon starts in on a strategic plan to focus on high-density urban areas and warehousing robotics, according to a report from Reuters.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has shown a lot of restraint in rolling out the grocery product as a handful of competitors like PeaPod, Fresh Direct and a host of more local, store-based systems have entered the space. But Bezos has slowed the process in order to learn from previous mistakes, as well as the mistakes of others. After all, with less than one percent of online activity responsible for the $586 billion in grocery retail sales, the addition of online grocery to Amazon's portfolio makes it virtually unsurpassable. Continue reading...